Category: Strategy & Tactics
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Review in Brief: Disaster in the West Woods by Marion Armstrong
Marion V. Armstrong. Disaster in the West Woods: General Edwin V. Sumner and the II Corps at Antietam. Western Maryland Interpretive Association (2002). 78 pages, 6 maps, notes, bibliography, index. ASIN: B0014SER8S Out of Print (Paperback). Disaster in the West Woods takes a detailed tactical look at II Corps commander Edwin Vose Sumner’s performance at […]
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Blue & Gray: Attack on Fort Stedman
Grabbed a copy of Blue & Gray magazine the other day for the article on the battle of Fort Stedman. For those unfamiliar with the action, it was the last assault of the Army of Northern Virginia on March 25, 1865. The article is by William Wyrick, a volunteer at Petersburg National Battlefield. Wyrick and […]
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Unsolved History: Pickett’s Charge
Watched an episode of Unsolved History the other night on Pickett’s Charge and it was actually pretty good. For those unfamiliar with the series, it takes a historical event with ambiguous circumstances and tries, using scientific techniques, to clarify them. In this case it was the reasons for the failure of the climactic Confederate attack […]
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Review: Unfurl Those Colors!: McClellan, Sumner, & the Second Army Corps in the Antietam Campaign
Marion V. Armstrong, Jr. Unfurl Those Colors!: McClellan, Sumner, and the Second Army Corps in the Antietam Campaign. Tuscaloosa, AL: The University of Alabama Press (March 26, 2008). 424 pages, 32 maps, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN: 978-0817316006 $39.95 (Hardcover w/DJ). Does Edwin V. Sumner, commander of the Army of the Potomac’s II Corps at Antietam, […]
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The Mechanics of Marching
The actual nuts and bolts of military life is something that usually doesn’t make it into the history books, yet it’s something soldiers have to deal with every day. Few who have not been in the military realize the constant, mind-numbing array of details that have to mastered on a daily basis just for an […]
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Controversies of a Campaign: Why Did French Attack the Sunken Road At Antietam?
I just finished reading Marion V. Armstrong’s new book Unfurl Those Colors!: McClellan, Sumner, and the Second Army Corps in the Antietam Campaign, and one of Armstrong’s theories just doesn’t sit right with me. Before we go into details let me give you a little bit of background. The fight over the northern portion of […]
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Should Ewell have taken “That Hill”?
Last weekend was my second trip to Gettysburg. Living in the deep south, some 13 hours away by car, it is sometimes difficult to get to places that we really want to go. That being said, it was my very FIRST time to Culp’s Hill. The first time I went (three years ago), I went […]